Cutey Honey , Part 4

In the original Cutey Honey TV series, whenever Honey changes into one of her many forms, she is seen nude briefly while the transformation takes place. The series also contains a number of panty shots when Honey is in her normal human form.

The degree of nudity in the different Cutey Honey series has varied over the years. While the all-ages Cutey Honey Flash featured the least nudity (and what little there was featured no detail), New Cutey Honey contained the most openly graphic sexual content, and was probably the closest to border on hentai of any of the series (it is even listed on The Right Stuf International's website as being an "adult" title). Because New Cutey Honey is the only Cutey Honey series to have been released in the United States (or indeed, in the English language), Cutey Honey often has an undeserved reputation in the English-speaking world as a hentai title (even though it technically isn't).

Despite the presence of nudity in Cutey Honey, most of it is done in a tongue-in-cheek manner, and there are no explicit scenes of sexual intercourse. Honey deals with lecherous old men, hormone-driven teenagers, and even beautiful, lesbian women in a humorous context. However, the franchise was parodied in hentai fashion in Angel Blade, part of the Vanilla Series.

The Cutie Honey theme song, titled simply "Cutie Honey," is considered by many fans to be one of the classic anime theme songs of all time. In the original 1973 television series, it was sung by Yoko Maekawa, who also performed the ending theme, Yogiri no Honey (Foggy Night of Honey). Other vocalists to have sung the Cutie Honey theme include les-5-4-3-2-1 (Shin Cutey Honey 1st opening), mayukiss (Shin Cutey Honey 2nd opening), SALIA (Cutey Honey F 1st opening), Kumi Koda (Cutie Honey live-action movie main theme and Re: Cutie Honey opening), GO!GO!7188 (included in their [[Tora no Ana]] anime cover song album), Okui Masami (included in her Masami Kobushi anime cover song album) and Ahyoomee (from Sugar, who did a Korean cover). The Mayukiss version (the second opening theme to the Shin Cutey Honey OAV) was sung in English, although its lyrics were not a direct translation of the Japanese lyrics. In the Spanish dub, all versions of the opening theme were dubbed by Patricia Acevedo, who was the original Spanish voice of Honey Kisaragi.

The original Japanese lyrics (in Romaji) and a closer (though still loose) English translation can be viewed at this site.

One thing that many of the versions of the theme song share is Honey's playful declaration, "Kawaru wa yo!" ("I'm going to Change!") at the end of the song. In the English dubbed version of Shin Cutie Honey, the line was spoken by voice actress Jessica Calvello as, "All right, it's time to change!" And in the Spanish versions, the line spoken is "¡Yo voy a cambiar!"

The theme song showed up again in the 1974 Toei mahou shoujo TV series Majokko Megu-chan, in a scene in which the heroine, Megu, watches Misty Honey (the pop idol form of Cutie Honey in the original series, not Honey's arch-rival from Cutey Honey F) on TV performing the song. Interestingly, Yoko Maekawa also sang the opening and ending theme songs to Majokko Megu-chan, a series which itself made heavy use of "panchira" and "fan service" humor.

The theme song also showed up in the 2006 anime Princess Princess. In the seventh episode, "A Chorus Concert with Sweat and Tears", the Princesses perform a shortened and faster version of the original theme song. Mikoto also exclaims the phrase "I'm going to change now." at the end of the performance.